The Laments of Loving a Heathen and a Whore
by Dolorose-Lalonde
Summary: Antonio is dedicated, cheerful, utterly pious and law-abiding...until he gets caught in a love triangle with a French noblewoman infamous for her promiscuity, and a notorious pirate who is also rumoured to be a witch. Fem!UK/Fem!France/Spain, AU.
1. Chapter 1

_Tick. You stare out the window._

"You shouldn't have gotten involved with them, you dumb bastard. What were you thinking?"

_Tock. There's an ant, trying to crawl its way up the white-faded curtains. You crush it._

"Would you stop moping around? This is ridiculous, Antonio."

_Tick. All you can see out this damned window is the noble French blue of the sky, the bold English green of the grass._

"Look, I know everything's kinda gone to shit, but at least you aren't dead."

_Tock. "Like they are", you can practically feel Lovino silently add._

"…Por fa-_fucking_-vor, just smile or something, dammit."

_Tick. You hum to yourself, suddenly quite interested in the ceiling. You hook a finger under the collar of your shirt. A silver fleur-de-lis, strung on a ribbon of braided scarlet._

"When was the last time you smiled for anyone but them?"

You shut your eyes, block Lovino out.

_The silver is starting to rust, the ribbon beginning to fray._

_Tock._

**A/N: Just so you know, this is an AU in which the nations are humans, and some are genderbended. If you don't like that sort of stuff, sorry? ;u;**

**God, I'm trying to do perhaps, like, five stories at once; it's actually quite fun.**


	2. Chapter 2

This story begins with the (relatively uneventful) life of a young Spaniard.

Antonio Carriedo, at a ripe and decently attractive age of twenty-two, could, overall, claim that he led an untroubled lifestyle. Not remarkably talented in most areas, but he was well-liked and well-respected; and while he had a slight penchant for getting himself into unwarranted conflict, he was loved all the more for his cheerful recklessness.

He would be well liked, even if he wasn't in such high favour.

The high favour the young man was gifted with was administered by none other than "Grandfather Vargas", the aged but curiously youthful-looking man, while simultaneously balanced and somewhat controlled by an elite council of twelve, was basically the most prominent authority figure in what has become known as Europa.

The years weren't counted anymore by B.C and A.D; instead going along with a much more convoluted system that made nearly everyone give up on recording time entirely. If someone were to estimate, it'd be somewhere in the early 1700's; though the technology in such a large nation varied (In some places, technology was rather progressive, almost ahead of its time; while other areas had regressed to an almost medieval lifestyle.)

After a particularly devastating war that had included nearly all the states in Europe (and nearly destroyed a good half), people had come to a solution in which all European countries were united. This new country that took up the majority of the continent itself became known as Europa.

While the borders between nations had been abolished, a good number of people preferred to stay with others of their own ethnicity rather than blend and dissipate like they were encouraged to. They clustered in large groups and treated those not of their original country, or those who had chosen not to exclusively stay with their own kind, with an exasperating amount of suspicion.

In most areas, though, Europa was a multicultural place. Most tolerated it; a rather insane few rejoiced in it. Antonio lived in Europa's bustling capital, which was located in the land formerly known as Italy. If one were to study the previous borders, the city of New Rome would be in northeast Italy, sitting on the border between it and what was formerly known as Austria.

Antonio delighted in making friends with nearly everyone, despite their origins. It was sort of what his job required, being one of the twelve who advised Grandfather Vargas. (The only other two on the council that he knew was this rather stuck-up aristocrat named Roderich, and his more warm-mannered young wife.) He gave input on how foreign relations should be conducted, and he was proud to say that he's prevented a few unnecessary conflicts between Europa and the bordering state of Russia.

Unfortunately, since he had first joined the council, Antonio was also saddled with the responsibility of looking after Grandfather Vargas's teenage grandson, Lovino.

For the longest time, Antonio had greatly resented this inglorious duty. Lovino, to put it in the most polite way possible, was a handful. He was a terrible flirt, endlessly wooing any pretty lady who so much as sniffed in his direction, and throwing an incredible fit when the ensuing relationship ended brief and unsatisfying. He had no interest in much other than sleeping and eating, and complained when he was obligated to do anything otherwise. In addition, he had a formidable pottymouth, and expressed deep hatred for anything that wasn't Italian. (Unless it was an attractive woman, of course.)

Antonio had all but begged on his knees to look after Lovino's more benign younger brother instead, but to no avail. Eventually, he had become fond of the boy; and though Lovino continued to refer to Antonio as "paella-pissing Spanish bastard", it was quite clear that the two had come to know each other as brothers.

With comfortably respectable jobs and a consistent companion, the young Spaniard was quite content with his life.

That is, until he was burdened with a job that caused him mental chagrin from the very start.

**A/N: Whoo-hoo, shitty exposition chapter!**


	3. Chapter 3

He had been told to keep an eye on them.

Francoise Bonnefoy, a rather charming noblewoman from a prominent bloodline; known for her breathtakingly attractive appearance, as well as her nigh-legendary sexual prowess. She was also under a certain amount of suspicion, for a questionable lack of patriotism and loyalty towards the State. Nobody could confirm that she was up to anything malicious, however, and most regarded her with a strange blend of fondness and disdainful mistrust. His order to keep an eye on her was pretty off-handed, a simple request to make sure she didn't get manipulated into advocating some treasonous plot. (As he'd later learn, she was more likely to have manipulated others.)

Anne Kirkland, he was ordered to be a bit more serious about. Despite being both young and a woman, she was captain of one of the most formidable pirate crews plaguing the oceans of Europa. She is said to be distantly related to one of the old Britain's queens; and is said that despite her despicable position, she conducts herself with the airs of a royal. She has easily terrorized every inch of Europa's surrounding seas; and additionally, is rumoured to be not only heathenish, but a full-out witch._ How else could some scrawny Englishwoman have the seas at her command?_, they reasoned. Captain Kirkland and Grandfather had an uneasy pseudo-alliance, but just as the young woman was undoubtedly breaking his terms of agreement, Grandfather Vargas was breaking hers by asking Antonio to find out a way to track her.

Antonio was determined to do this job right. It was an easy enough job, was it not? Even Lovino had said so, whistling through his teeth and saying; _Your job is to stalk women? Well, shit, sign me up._

He supposed he'd start with the Lady Bonnefoy, considering she also lived in New Rome and that at the moment, he couldn't quite figure out just how he was supposed to track down a notorious sea-heathen who could be honestly be anywhere on the Atlantic Ocean.

Antonio decided to begin by simply tailing the Frenchwoman. He started to become rather bored after several days of following her to clothing stores and the like. He was nervous as well, because a handful of times, he was almost sure he saw her cast a knowing, mocking glance in his general direction. He had shrugged this off, though; she seemed much too ignorant to notice that she was being watched.

One day, after trailing her into a dress shop; and pretended to be interested in a yellow bolt of silk fabric, while occasionally scrutinizing the Lady Bonnefoy through the corner of his eye.

Yet at some point, he had ended up spacing out, daydreaming whimsically about whether Lovino would look good in the flowing lace and chiffon that was currently popular with New Rome's women. (Antonio had the tendency to drift off into ridiculous fantasies, especially when faced with something as unentertaining as his current situation.).

Before he could snap out of it, he felt slender fingers placing themselves on the dip between his neck and his shoulder.

Antonio's breath hitched in his throat, with a noise that would have been quite the undignified squawk, had he let it bubble out.

A saccharine voice, heavily French-accented, hissed in his ear. "Ah, _mon dieu_. I've had many secret admirers, but a_ stalker_, now, this is new."

Antonio's mouth opened, and moved uselessly before he managed to shoot a glare over his shoulder and say, "Now, senorita. I don't have any idea what you are talking about."

"Do you, now." The grip on him becomes tighter, and Antonio feels himself being pulled closer to her. When she speaks again, he can feel her breath on the back of his ear.

"As flattered as I am, mon cher, I enjoy keeping my personal life personal." He hears the rustle of silk as she steps closer, her heel-toed boot in between his feet. "Or do you enjoy looking in on my…" A disdainful giggle here. "…_private affairs_, Spanish cretin?"

The most Antonio could get out was some indignant sputtering before Francoise had disappeared in a swish of velvets and silk, exiting the shop. He didn't even get a chance to turn around all the way, but he could feel the smug expression boring into the back of his head throughout the entire one-sided conversation.

The young Spaniard gaped silently at the wall, the yellow fabric still caught between his fingers.

_She knows I've been following her? She's known the whole time?_

After several moments of dumbstruck silence, Antonio leaves, feeling a dull sense of failure and a belated desire to elbow that woman in her sweetly smirking mouth.

**A/N: Well, guess we're meeting Anne next.**

**Man, writing at three in the morning's a terrible idea; when I edited this every other word was some form of horrific typo!**


	4. Chapter 4

Antonio awoke that night to another grip on his shoulder…and a rapier at his throat.

With a startled cry; he jolts, trying to sit up. But he's swiftly pushed back into the soft covers, and he can feel a bony knee sharply pushing into his ribcage. An equally bony hand settles itself on his protesting mouth, but lightly enough for him to be able to coherently demand, "_Ay dios mio_! What's going on, who are you?"

His eyes adjusting to the dark, he can vaguely make out the blurry features of a woman's face. They get clearer when the woman leans down, and he can make out murky green eyes under a set of thick black eyebrows.

"I was having a feeling that old codger wanted to spy on me. From what I've been told, I'm correct. As per always."

Kirkland.

"_You know?_", Antonio yowls before sharp knuckles get shoved between his teeth.

"Of course I bloody know, you twit. I've got friends in high places.", he says matter-of-factly, and Antonio doesn't quite know whether to believe her on this or not. "And I was told that you, dear chap, have been ordered to track me."

The woman laughs, digging her knee further into his chest. "Not that you would've found me, anyways, but it's nice to see what an incompetent fuck that old man wanted to set after me. How utterly pitiful."

She rambles on, and Antonio notices she smells faintly like rum. "I've decided to hang around this dump of a city for a while; I have business with some old friends to attend to. Perhaps you can actually grow a prick and keep up with me!"

She uncovers his mouth, and even so, it didn't do Antonio much good; seeing as he lived alone and chose not to keep any hired help around. Nonetheless, he tries to summon the gumption to say something witty, something verbally devastating.

What he comes up with is, "Are you drunk?"

Even when she recoils from him, straightens her spine in indignation, he can still vaguely smell the alcohol lingering on her. "Now, you're just full of preposterous ideas today, aren't you?"

"_Tonight_", he corrects, and shifts irritably. "Now, please get off of me-"

"Fine! I don't want to be wrought with the germs of a Spaniard, anyways—"

But instead of getting off of Antonio and giving him the relief of an unoccupied stomach, the pirate woman apparently chooses this shining moment to spontaneously fall unconscious, her head suddenly resting heavily on his chest with a slurred _"fuck"_.

Antonio promptly lets loose a flustered torrent of curses, then groans and rolls out from under the scrawny dead-weight. He quietly notes that the revered Anne Kirkland here was actually much smaller than he'd imagine. Then again, he also wouldn't imagine the revered Anne Kirkland to drunkenly break into his house just to gloat at him and pass out on his stomach.

As he inspects her (_Golden! Fucking golden! How'd she get a hold of this?_) rapier, he wonders if he should call somebody, alert them to his current situation, but his face burns with yowling humiliation just at the thought of telling them that not only did the Frenchwoman know about his spying from the start, the only way he could find the Englishwoman was for her to literally sit on top of him. Surely, he'd become some manner of laughingstock, but at least he'd have done his job?

Well, he thinks as he irritably stares at his new guest, with her jagged body digging into his side;_ I guess I'll figure this out in the morning_.


	5. Chapter 5

That morning, he awakes with a thin pair of legs draped across his knees and a thick red coat lodged underneath his back. Hoisting himself up on his elbows, he stared at it for a while, at the rich velvet, at the meticulously polished golden buttons that had a faint engraving of a flourished "A".

He absentmindedly starts to run his hand over the what seems to be a silver pin, and that's when he feels the sudden stab of nails on his wrist's flesh.

"_Touch that and you die_."

Kirkland. Sprawled out on her stomach in his wrinkled bedsheets, and glaring up at him in a way that was not unlike a venomous snake. During the night before, she had seemed haughty and incoherent, at the moment she simply looked irritated; possibly even more so than Antonio had been the night before.

With what was surely a stupid look on his face, Antonio retracted his fingers from her coat, which she snatched back with an expression that implied that he was trying to drown her pet kitten in a water bucket.

He hears a loud, low-pitched groan, and Kirkland's head falls down again. She growls a string of muffled obscenities before rolling over lethargically.

"I should probably get up. But I feel like some bugger's trying to set off several fireworks displays inside my head, so you'll forgive me if I exploit your hospitality a bit longer."

A sensible person would call the authorities right now. A sensible person would take advantage of a situation that quite literally landed right in his lap. A sensible person would also kick an infamous pirate out of his bed as well as out of his general vicinity, lady or not.

Seeing as Antonio Carriedo is not a sensible person, he sits there and does a striking impression of a gaping fish.

After a few comical moments of simply staring at one another, the woman asks, "Well, you aren't exactly the sharpest knife in the box, are you, love?"

"Okay, that's enough!" Antonio pants, his face growing unbearably hot with what could either be anger or firsthand embarrassment. "Either get out of my house or stop talking, or I swear that I will-…what are you doing?"

The Captain is rummaging around in Antonio's sleek wooden cupboards, standing on the toes of her carefully shined boots to reach his sloppily organized stores of food. She's already accumulated a pile of preserved fruit jars, held in the crook of her arm. He can hear her muttering under her breath about what an "unorganized swine" he is._ Who's the swine here, senorita_?, he thinks irritably. _You are the one traipsing around my kitchen and stealing my food._

Before he can open his mouth once more to let out a protest that was undoubtedly weaker than his thoughts were, she slides her bog-green gaze to him and says, "You can put it on my tab."

"My what?

She grins, shutting the cupboard with a bang and leaning back on her heels. Antonio notes that the cupboard door nearly breaks off its hinges, and wonders how such a scrawny young woman could be so strong, and look the part as well.

"If I give you an impressive enough sum of money once I'm out of here, and at least make an effort not to bother you, you shall give your old wank of a boss a false report on me. Say that I'm anywhere _but_ New Rome." She frowned. "I have important business to attend to. Important acquaintances to meet, and I will not have myself be inconvenienced by a slack-faced Spaniard, you hear?"

"You are asking if I will take a bribe.", he deadpans, paling at the thought. He, an honourable young man, taking money that was probably earned through thievery or prostitution or God-knows-what.

She's already headed toward the door, somehow looking dignified even with an armful of stolen food and disheveled clothes fresh from her drunken night before. Kirkland does not even turn to look at Antonio this time when she says, "If bribery is not your style, then perhaps blackmail would work?"

_Blackmail?_, he mouths incredulously. _How could she possibly-_

Without even being able to see the girl's face, he could sense the smirk on her chapped, thin lips; and is unpleasantly reminded of the Frenchwoman in the shop.

"There are those in this world that are actually good at spying on people, love."

And with that, she's out of his house before the sun even rises.

**A/N: Why don't I change this story;s title to "Antonio Carriedo Is Awkward With Women".**


	6. Chapter 6

When Antonio gives Grandfather Vargas the report that evening, Lovino notices a shift in the Spaniard's usually sunny demeanor. Grandfather doesn't catch the worried gleam in his eyes; the forced twitch to his white-toothed smile. He just nods in decided satisfaction when he hears that the Lady Bonnefoy is up to absolutely nothing of political interest, and that Captain Kirkland is off raiding some distant African colony that nobody cares about. He nods, not seeming to realize that ever-open, ever-honest Antonio Carriedo is_ lying_.

Why Lovino catches this, he doesn't know. Perhaps it's because of all this time that he's spent under the Antonio's well-meaning but vaguely overbearing care. Whether he liked it or not, they were like family by now.

And for all the times he's claimed not to give a fuck, Lovino finds himself bringing the topic up the moment they're alone.

They're in Antonio's house, and Lovino notices that some of the cabinets have been carelessly thrust open, with meager contents spilling over gracelessly. The bastard always _was_ quite terrible at cleaning. When he was first given the task of looking after the Lovino, he'd tried to make the boy clean for him in an attempt to make him useful. (This ended in a house that was still dastardly messy, as well as a surly child taking a piss on his floor.)

Now instead of fixing said cabinets, Lovino is rummaging around in them, in a reckless pursuit of "tolerable" food. This in and of itself was not enough to put Antonio on edge.

What_ was_ enough to put him on edge, though, is the suspicious, knowing tone the Italian was employing when he asked, _So, how's the woman-hunt really going?_

__Antonio's glad that his charge's eyes are focused on his food rather than his face, because he can't see the way he visibly freezes. Admirably enough, his voice is frighteningly at ease when he replies, _What are you talking about, Lovi? Weren't you there when I gave the report? It's going fine!_

_Don't bullshit me, you bastard._ And this time, Lovino turns around just in time to see the Spaniard cringe. _It's not that I care about your dumb politics, but it's been a while since I've seen that face on you. Looks like you're constipated._

__Antonio laughs. Lovino scowls. Such is the introduction to most of their meaningful conversations.

There's a resigned sigh, as Antonio puts his hands up in a placating gesture. _Yes, yes, I'll tell you. It's embarrassing, though._

_Do you mean to tell me that anything you do or say isn't embarrassing? _And despite his flippant tone and the way he is currently speaking with half an orange in his mouth, Lovino sounds intrigued enough to pry Antonio into continuing.

So, he explains. And not a single, harrowing, irritating detail of his brief but thoroughly unpleasant encounters with both these women is missed. How the Lady had sneaked up behind him like Eve's serpent; how the pirating heathen woman had broken into his house just to drunkenly gloat at him. When he's done, he nervously cards tanned fingers through his hair and groans, _Ay, me. You know your abuelo trusts me, right? Even for this small thing, I cannot let him down._

That's when his gaze slides hopefully over to his companion, which is exactly the look he was wearing when he'd mistakenly expected Lovino to act as his house maid. Would he be better suited for this sort of task? He'd heard that even when the Vargas boys were little, the sharp-tongued elder of the brothers had a capacity for sneaking around. While his younger brother was annoying the cooks and painting landscapes, Lovino caught peeks of the Lady Hedervary without invoking her husband's wrath. (Or worse, _her_ wrath. Lord have mercy on her pan-wielding soul.) Lovino may resent being less noticed than his kin, but his curse for living in other people's shadows could also make him serve far better as a spy than Antonio ever could.

So when he enlists Lovino's help and he readily accepts, the young Spaniard was quite overjoyed. (All while ignoring the fact that his hormone-addled charge had probably agreed so quickly because it involved women. Unmarried women, no less.) Slightly impure ambitions aside, Antonio thanks him profusely. _Thank you, thank you, for once you're not bent on doing exactly the opposite of what I'm asking you to do. Now, they're both located in New Rome for now, I know that much. Just find out what they're doing without getting yourself noticed and report it back to me, yes? _He holds his hand out to Lovino in a conspiratorial little gesture, and sheepishly adds, _Oh, and. Please, could you not tell this to your grandfather?_

__In response, the Italian noisily sucks orange juice off his thumb and holds out his own hand, square-palmed and pudgy in direct contrast to his little brother's graceful hands. _When have I ever told him anything?_

**A/N: I'm baaaaack. With a poorly-written vengeance. **_  
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